Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

Someone had taken the wise precaution of enlarging the tables in the Great Hall. Harry was more than grateful for this, because the students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons had chosen to rejoin the tables they had sat at yesterday. This left the larger Gryffindor table considerably more spacious than before and nobody needed to brush against him, or sit with a leg pressed up against his.

After enduring Katie Bell's closeness at the last lunch Harry tactically chose a seat between Ron, who would be firmly focused on food at this, or any, mealtime, and the corner. He had space to continue reading without any uncomfortable interruptions and as long as he left his arm between Ron and his rack of toast he had enough breakfast as well.

It promised to be a good day.

The Goblet of Fire was still cheerfully burning away at the opposite end of the hall to where he was sitting. The blue flames flickering in the corner of his eye, reflected on the inside of his glasses. It grew annoying quite quickly and Harry was forced to turn back in towards the table and the conversation.

'Ten sickles says it's Angelina,' he heard Seamus mutter.

'You're on,' Dean replied, keeping a weather eye on Hermione who thoroughly disapproved of gambling. 'It will Diggory or that uppity Ravenclaw for sure.'

'He won't pay you,' Ron accused through a mouthful of bacon. 'Seamus still owes me for the house-elf bet.'

'Don't remind me,' Dean shuddered. 'And keep it down, Hermione's not remembered to try foist badges onto us today yet. Let's try and make it last?'

'Badges?' Harry looked up from his book curiously.

'Yeah,' Seamus glowered. 'It's your damn fault. That rubbish you concocted and fed her about house-elves at Hogwarts set her off in search of the kitchens and now she's gone and started an enslaved magical people's rights group.'

'I wasn't expecting her to do that,' he objected. 'I just wanted to stop her attempts to force feed me.'

'Well it worked, but we're all paying a high price for it,' Dean said with mock seriousness.

'She hasn't tried to sell me one,' Harry shrugged.

'You haven't exactly been around, mate,' Ron retorted. 'We're living dangerously, we are.'

'Yeah, any more refusals and she'll realise we don't agree with her,' Dean cut in.

'Or worse,' Seamus grinned, 'we might end up like Neville.'

Harry looked down the table in search of their shy friend, but saw nothing amiss. He raised an eyebrow at the Irish wizard.

'Hermione's sold him about ten badges already, but he keeps forgetting them. She thinks he's doing it on purpose and has taken to harassing him about wearing them every time she sees him.'

'Better him than us,' Dean advocated, 'better him than us.'

'Too true,' Ron agreed. 'She went mental on Lavender when she refused to wear one because it didn't go with her lip gloss.'

'Best refusal yet,' Seamus laughed. 'Hermione was absolutely livid that lip gloss could be considered of equal importance to her anti-slavery movement.'

'Someone needs to tell her about the differences between keeping house-elves and having slaves,' Ron groused. 'It's growing well beyond a joke.'

They all turned to look at expectantly at Harry. 'I don't actually know myself,' he apologised. 'Have you tried leaving books about it lying around near her? She'll see them, read them, and maybe stop. Once she's learnt a bit more about she'll realise she's wrong and move on. Hermione's never been one to cling to an opinion she knows is incorrect.'

'That's a good idea, mate,' Seamus agreed. 'Cunning. It's worth the trip to the library too.' Hermione, fortunately, was not listening and remained unaware.

'Do you reckon they'll announce the champions today?' Ron asked, throwing a furtive place at the goblet.

'Dumbledore said he would,' Dean answered.

Harry really had very little interest in the Triwizard Tournament and buried his nose back into the pages of his charms book. The cover had started to fall off from centuries of neglect in the chamber, and the outer pages were all but illegible. The section on the water-conjuring spell was both unmarred and interesting, if a little theory heavy for Harry's taste, but he curiously went through it regardless. The charm would save him a great deal of effort in the night. Everyone hated it when someone staggered or rummaged around noisily in the middle of the dormitory searching for a drink.

He quietly pinched Ron's goblet to practice.

'Aguamenti,' he murmured, pointing his wand tip into the vessel.

A very small dribble of water filled the bottom few inches of the goblet. For a first attempt it wasn't too bad, there was water. He could practise the action and visualisation later in the common room or in the chamber.

Turning the next few pages, most of which seemed to be adhered together by something that looked unpleasantly like bile, he found an interesting note on shield charms.

The shield charm is a heavily intent based ward, adapted from basic hex deflection into a more practical defense. As such it can only be penetrated by spells cast with stronger intent and focus. The ultimate example of which is the Killing Curse that has such a potent level of intent it cannot be shielded against.

It was quite a useful little nugget of information and Harry was rather glad he'd snuck the book out past the watchful eyes of Salazar's portrait. It was just a shame he hadn't found a more intact copy, or couldn't read enough of the title to buy one of his own.

Happily ensconced in the weathered tome he continued to pour over the few legible pages, munching on toast in between turning them, and trying not to get any crumbs on the book. His attempt was more out of a learned fear of Madam Pince than anything since this spell book was rather beyond saving.

It was quite a while later, when he was considering the wand movement of the stunning spell, that an odd, uncomfortable feeling began to make itself known.

Harry ignored it as best he could and focused harder on the book, but the sensation persisted and eventually he looked up out of growing paranoia.

The entirety of the Great Hall was staring at him.

I missed something important, he realised, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

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